There will be blood

5 hearty, toothsome dishes to try this time of year

Blood: it's not just for vampires anymore! Because prepared properly — mostly by cooking out any strong off-putting tastes — blood is a versatile and delicious element in plenty (mostly ethnic) dishes. These five do it well.

Black Pudding at Blokes & Birds: The English take on blood sausage relies on rusk, a crumbled biscuit filler that's mixed with pork into casing. At Lakeview's Blokes & Birds, the black pudding is a milder, unspiced version of Cajun boudin noir — like biting into sausage stuffed with rice — only here, it's accompanied with cinnamon-dusted apple slices that act as a sweet counterpoint. Optional addition: a fried duck egg for $3. $6. Blokes & Birds, 3343 N Clark St., 773-472-5252

Dinuguan at Little Quiapo: Every Filipino grew up eating dinuguan (pronounce all four syllables), a pork offal stew with beef blood. Do not recoil, America, for it's 10 times more delicious than its description: sauteed pork chunks and pork stomach sauteed with tomatoes, onions and garlic, thickened with beef blood and splashed with vinegar. Still with me? It resembles a Pueblan mole that's veering purple, a stew warming and pungent when ladled over steamed white rice. $9.95. Little Quiapo, 6259 N. McCormick Ave., 773-279-8861

Morcilla at Folklore: The Argentinian morcilla isn't so much blood sausage in the sausage sense, as spreadable meat crumbles that go with toast, potatoes, even steak. Wicker Park's Folklore (and its sister restaurant Tango Sur) gets morcilla from its family butchery, El Mercado Food Mart in Lakeview, where patriarch Rodolfo Di Sapio messily adds beef blood to minced beef, pork and pork skin. The morcilla is baked at the restaurant, a black-as-the-night sausage with crisp casing, crusty baked ends and the interior texture of wet breadcrumbs. Blindfolded, you'd assume it was just great sausage minus the blood — no lingering iron taste whatsoever. $4 as side dish. Folklore, 2100 W. Division St., 773-292-1600

Czernina at Kasia's: In Poland, they called it czernina. When it first appeared on the menu at Kasia's in Ukrainian Village, the restaurant opened by Kazimiera Bober in 1982, it carried its English translation — duck blood soup. It's still on the menu, nearly three decades later, but now it's more of a weekend dish, and Bober, who still runs the place, uses beef blood these days. "The inspectors don't let us use duck," she said. And yet Kasia's is one of the few restaurants in Chicago still serving czernina. Which is incredibly ugly to look at, and incredibly sweet and tasty. It contains thick, ropey noodles, prunes, raisins, apples and a broth that is part chicken juice, part boiled fruit. And yes, blood. "I don't eat it," Bober said. "I had one customer who ate it, so I kept making it. But it's popular with older Polish. The younger people, they never eat it." $2.99. Kasia's, 2101 W. Chicago Ave., 773-486-7500

Bun Bo Hue at Tank Noodle: Considered Vietnam's second best-known noodle soup (behind pho), bun bo hue could be dangerous, depending on how trigger happy the chef is with the chili. It's a fiery beef soup bowl, hints of lemongrass and shrimp paste, and round noodles that slurp into the mouth with minimal effort. The pork blood cube plays a supporting role here, part of the beef shank, minced pork patty and pork knuckle ensemble. $8.95. 4953-55 N. Broadway St. 773-878-2253